I think your second paragraph rings true. I also think there is a cost to using a non-mainstream technology that is often overlooked or under-estimated. I als

I think your second paragraph rings true. I also think there is a cost to using a non-mainstream technology that is often overlooked or under-estimated. I also think the benefits of non-mainstream languages are often over-stated. In other words, when you really look at the details the cool/niche languages do often have notable drawbacks. I suspect that for most organizations the pro/con or cost/benefit comparisons of C++ vs. D don't often come out in D's favor and never did. In the early days D chose to use GC which today, and for the past 30 years I have done C++ work professionally, has always been a dis-qualifier (mainly because of the extra memory overhead involved as well as the GC pauses). I have always looked at D with some interest, but never come close to formulating an argument that I could take to my company and suggest we start using D where we currently use C++. C++ almost uncompromisingly holds true to its backwards compatibility goals with C and the early versions of itself. C++ also almost always holds true to its "zero overhead abstraction" goals. D chose GC and replaced its standard library at one point. It is an interesting language for sure, but I think there are some things C++ has done better, from a practical use point of view, at least for the use cases where its use is still justified today, by being a more conservatively designed language.